


we waited too long for

by fated_addiction



Category: Korean Drama, Vampire Geomsa | Vampire Prosecutor
Genre: Angst, F/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-09
Updated: 2013-04-09
Packaged: 2017-12-08 01:10:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/755236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fated_addiction/pseuds/fated_addiction
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Yoo was, is, and will always be too calculated. The decision can wait; Luna's words were heavy enough. (Post series two)</p>
            </blockquote>





	we waited too long for

**Author's Note:**

> A five day vacation brings about another massive re-watch of both series. Can't stop, won't stop -- just bring me series three.

When they find him, it's not okay, in fact, everything is beyond _okay_ and all in all there is left effort put into hiding that things are just not okay and there is merely variety in each person's story.

What they can agree on when they find Min:

Their old new boss is fired. For less than stellar reasons. Dong Man is nearly poignant when he flusters and hides behind a file, muttering, "but she was a crazy _bitch_..." as if she were still listening to sell them out.

Soon Bum has one good arm. He hits twice as hard. He does not slow down; he can't.

Jung In stays in the hospital.

There is that much.

 

 

 

**1.**

They feed her the same jello twice in a row. She doesn't like strawberries. They remind her of summertime at home. She doesn't like to think about going home.

Her department therapist buys her a burger and sneaks it in. Jung In almost likes him. She tells him she isn't hungry and it's true.

"Can we talk?" he asks. He is an older man. He is impatient. She knows very little outside the fact that he wears silver-rimmed glasses and has been with the department for a little over thirty years with no desire to retire. She wonders when that kicks in.

"We're talking," she says and she doesn't mean to be rude. Yet. Her fingers curl around the plastic spoon. There's crack at the top and she frowns.

"Not really."

He's pleasant; she keeps frowning.

"What do I say then?" she asks.

"Whatever you want," he replies and she can feel him watch her. There is intention in how he watches her. She has sat next to that kind of intention in court.

Court, she thinks, she misses. Court but more so actual work, actual _case_ work. There is a sense of structure that is gone; she can't remember anything before things like _fire_ and _min_ and _dead friends_ , but it's still something she misses. She misses being a prosecutor.

That amounts to nothing else anyway. Dr. Jo is still dead and their strange, dysfunctional if not makeshift family is pieces and she can't stop touching her neck and throat and pulse.

"I don't know what I want to say," she mutters.

"That's a starting place."

Jung In blinks. She meets the therapist's gaze. Then she blinks again and almost laughs.

"Is it?" she asks and pushes her jello away. "Because if it is then you're going to be here for awhile asking me about all the things that I _don't_ want to talk about. Because there's plenty of that. All the things that I'd just rather not -- you're going to make your assumptions and I'm going to let you. I'm a prosecutor, you know."

He laughs. There is nothing kind about the sound. He leans against his knees and it's all strange motion. It's kind and he almost looks like family.

He's still serious, next.

"Let's talk about the fire," he says.

 

 

 

**2.**

They tell her she was awake after she fell through the window --

she _would_ fall through a window, Dong Man grouses because no one else knows how to make something out of the situation that isn't awkward, so he's aiming for both awkward and funny. Here (when she first is awake) she smiles a little, or try to smile a little because her lips are too chapped, she thinks she smells the smoke and the dry air. It's the hospital gown though. It's the hospital gown and how dry it feels --

and it was only for five minutes, five _real_ minutes, where they revived her and the emergency unit was surround the three of them, calling her name out as the rest went into the building. There were sirens and her vision was pretty blurry. In fact she was sure it was pretty blurry, even though she doesn't remember seeing much of anything.

There was this piece of conversation though:

"Stay with us!"

"Yoo! Yoo! Oh god she isn't here. Oh god we can't _lose_ her!"

"Hyung! We need to move back! _Hyung!_ "

And then there is what she doesn't remember.

_i'm sorry_

 

 

 

**3.**

Jung In is not there when they find him.

She can't be. There is extensive therapy required. She has gone through a trauma. They are worried about her breathing. She was kidnapped but not harmed (not what the definition of harm is; she can almost hear their new boss née former new boss in her head -- it isn't _harm_ unless it's actually, really physical) and that seems to keep her unfit for duty at the moment.

It will be awhile when he comes to see her.

It might be guilt. It might be that she doesn't actually fit where his obsession is returning to border, somewhere between family and end and his sister might as well just stay dead for Min's own sense of sanity at the moment.

But when he does -- because he _does_ \-- she is awake, wide-eyed, and not sitting in a hospital gown in her bed. Instead she has scrubs, blue and loose fitting. She swims in one of Soon Bum's old shirt. ("I want to not feel like I'm in a stupid hospital," she had snarled, throwing a dish at the therapist. That was accidental. Not the dish throwing part.)

"You're alive," she greets when she sees him.

He walks through the door. There isn't a hair out of place. HIs gaze is dark and blank.

"So are you," he says, and it's affectionate.

"I guess so."

He doesn't sit, not yet. Instead he frames the door and she almost misses Soon Bum's _coffee_ ; it's light and too nervous as it is.

She searches his face though, and then studies his frame, picking at every jaunt, every slighted curve and possible injury that he might not have. She knows that he recovers fast. She's long accepted that. She's noisy, but the truth hangs heavier than ever.

"So you tossed me out a window." Her voice is dry. "At least, that's what I heard from the others."

"You're recovering."

"Slowly," she counters, and her hand trails to her throat. Her fingers curl and push at her skin. He watches her closely. Jung In sighs. "It's all relative, I guess. They say I can get out of here in a couple of days. Whatever that means."

"You're restless." He moves to sit, finally. His legs are too long and they rest against the bed. "You have to recover."

"Or I could ask you where you were."

He chokes. Or laughs. Her mouth tips into some kind of almost smile.

"You could," he agrees.

"But you won't answer," she says.

"I don't know." She can't tell if he's being honest. "Do you want to know?" he asks and she still can't tell. He leans forward and smoothes out the invisible wrinkles on the bed.

"That's a stupid question."

"There's no such thing."

Jung In reaches forward and it's totally inappropriate but she doesn't care. Her fingers flick at his forehead and this is her hospital room, damn it. He was the one that threw her out a window -- to save her life, sure and _whatever_ \-- so she gets to have some breathing room too.

"Sunbae," she mutters. "Don't make me call you an idiot."

He's amused. The corners of his mouth turn.

"But you will," he says gently.

"I should be angry --" she stops, but doesn't follow: with _you_ , at _you_. It seems stupid to tell him this. She bites her lip hard. Then, after awhile, she starts again. "I don't even remember all the questions I want to dump on you."

"That's a problem?"

Her eyes narrow.

He laughs softly, awkwardly. The lines in his face relax and she forgets that her hand has dropped. Her thumb catches his jaw and she's not exactly sure as to why; he can't stop staring at her face though, then it's her throat, and she is confused as to why she has just started picking up on this.

"Sunbae," she says again. "Min," she says carefully.

He does not say: "I did what I had to do." She does not know why she expects it. There is a lull and then there is a pause and he won't stop staring at her.

He breathes first. Then he leans back in his seat.

"I'm sure you'll be back soon," he says.

 

 

 

**4.**

Her mother leaves her a message.

She ignores it, of course. Her parents will not come to the city. Her father has his business and she cannot drag that in between what's already happened and the old, shapeless rumors that were already going around the department. Her dad is a mobster. Her dad controls _blah_ and _beep_. There is nothing alleged in any of these, but there is merit. If there wasn't any merit, she would be exactly who she is and the decisions she's made would not and could not be what they were.

But her leave from the hospital is preluded before this message and it's Dong Man who is supposed to take her home but doesn't (case) and Soon Bum promises to hit him and then also take her home and doesn't (also case). When Min shows up, she is already halfway into a cab, furious, shakily gripping her bag that she doesn't remember bringing and wanting to kill them _both_.

"No," he says and takes her bag.

"No?"

She blinks. Then she scowls and slams the cab door as he gives her room. He holds onto her bag tightly.

"Don't you have work to do," she says, practically spits and she is not good at not doing _anything_. Jung In gets bored and fidgety and mostly it's boredom bordering on being all kind of dangerous. 

"You need a ride," he says and she's nervous, maybe. Her stomach feels like it's going to split in half and it's doing loops too. When he takes her arm, she's a little dizzy and he's close enough to tell. His mouth remains firm.

They will not talk the entire drive to her apartment.

It doesn't matter anyway -- she can't, she doesn't know what to say to him, there's an entire list in her head and she can go through it, piece it carefully together what she is starting to remember (smoke, lots of smoke, and that boy- _man_ grinning and teething through blood, holding a gun to ahead like she's, finally, the right trophy) and knows exactly why she doesn't like to be used. She goes through all of that once, then twice.

She takes care to sit in his car as it is, folded against the passenger seat as she tries to sort of remain calm but not really. It's hard knowing that he's right there and she can't understand why he's right there, or rather, _how_ he's right there without feeling angry or jaded or both. It's easier to stay silent and watch the hospital fade away, heavy lights as the sky turns from pink to gray and just black with blurs and lights.

After awhile, and before her apartment, she reaches for the radio dial on his car and then stops.

"I don't want to sit like this," she says abruptly.

"I really don't listen to anything," he tells her. She snorts. He smirks. "That was a joke."

Her eyes narrow. "I don't even want to know."

Min shrugs. "You don't look ready to talk."

"Are _you_?" she asks and it's bitting. She is all frowns and wrinkles around her mouth. She hates the way he's staring at her too: half-amused, too much of his attention, and she is blushing before she even realizes it.

"You know I'd tell you an answer."

"There's a keyword," she says dryly.

He pulls the car to stop at a light. She stares at him and he stares straight ahead, watching the lights. She expects some sort of tell to suddenly happen; he's abrupt, if anything. She catches on quickly when it is just the two of them. She feels out of her element. It's not that simple; she wants to shower, she wants to wear her clothes, she wants to stop feeling like everyone is treating her so passively. She doesn't feel fragile. She feels tired.

And it's spilling out of her before she can stop it, her mouth moving as she shifts and edges to the corner of her seat, pressing her palms into the glove compartment in front of her. Her fingers curl into fists and she hits once, then twice, before he's pulling off to the side of the road and there are too many cars going by.

"I remember the gun."

Her mouth opens. Then it closes.

"I remember his laugh," she says too. Her eyes close. "I don't see him and I remember these stupid, small things. I don't feel like a victim. I wasn't a victim. I knew _exactly_ what I was getting into, regardless of you being ready to talk to me about going into situations without thinking."

"You're headstrong," he says quietly.

"By now, you shouldn't be surprised."

"I'm not." His hands drop from the wheel and he turns the car off. "It's why I like --" he fumbles through it, circling back and stopping over, "trust you as a member of my team."

Jung In snorts.

"I was worried."

He's soft. It's almost like he's not there. Her hand reaches out instinctively and she's stopped, shorted and surprised as his hand curls around her wrist. His fingers press into her pulse and she breathes. That part is instinctive.

"What does that even mean?" she asks tiredly.

"I --" then he stops again, his nails skimming over her wrist. She meets his gaze this way. "You worry me," he says.

"We're well-past that."

"You've got to stop arguing with me." His voice is edge with something that makes her uncomfortable. She wants to call it guilt to be safe. It isn't guilt. It dries her throat. It makes her sit straight. He lets go of her wrist too. "You're never going to just _listen_."

It makes Jung In laugh. It cracks out of her mouth and she's just staring at him, a little confused, and even dismayed. She may kiss him like this. Then she stops herself from thinking that. She cannot kiss him. She will not kiss him. She just wants to do something that will completely catch him. She just needs to _catch_ him, but the why is really what lingers.

"I don't know what to do with you," she says.

For now that's that.

 

 

 

**5.**

There are two different stories for the first time she kisses him.

What they can agree on is simple; she kisses with her teeth and he keeps her too close.

She likes the way his fingers dig into her hip to keep her steady.

She will never admit to Luna's words in her head, even heavier with a dead whisper -- _depending on what you decide_ and _don't forget that_ seems like the best and the most of answer she will ever get. But then there is still this: she likes his hands and his fingers and he keeps her close enough to wind his fingers into her throat and her hair. 

She does not come back to work yet.

 

 

 

**6.**

The department therapist is worried about her nightmares. She thinks he's an ass. Actually, he's a totally an ass and every single one of them know it but she's given lots of free time to stare at her apartment walls, wondering if she just go back home and inherit the family business because that, that would be the last thing she would do -- even over her own dead body.

But she won't call it a nightmare, out some perverse desire to categorize all of her memories for later use. It still comes to her in pieces: fire, smell; fire, skin; in the distance there is Min and he is panicking, mouth stretched as he says _something_. She can remember herself hearing things -- everything -- until her back hit the ground and Min was over her, his knees against her back and his mouth at her throat.

"It's a trauma," the therapist says.

His tie is green today. Lately, his ties have changed into mood swings. Green for obnoxiously curious. Blue for mildly obvious. She can pick that apart without thinking.

"I know," she agrees. "You can even read from a book," she continues, rolling her eyes. She is not impolite, but she is impatient. "Tell me a definition. Get _my_ boss to come here and tell me about what happened. Nothing's going to changed. I'm still going to be pissed off about what happened and not being able to come back to work as fast as I want."

"You've been holding that in." He almost sounds impressed.

"I'm bored."

He chuckles. "We're worried about all our officers safety," he answers. This is the standard answer. "You know this is for --"

"The benefit of my own good?" The therapist doesn't hold back his scoff; Jung In crosses her legs at her ankle. "You mean, they're worried about some kind of bureaucratic --"

"Yes, well," he interrupts. "We should move on."

She blinks. Then she fidgets in her seat. She leans forward on her knees. Her elbows dig into her jeans.

"Is he here?" she asks suddenly.

It's a feeling, she thinks. Her stomach feels like it it's going to sink.

The therapist disregards her question entirely. He writes in his notes. She watches the pen move up and down the folder resting against the nook of his knees.

"So he is," she says quietly.

The pen stops.

The question hangs between them.

It always ends with Min, after all.

 

 

 

**7.**

He takes her home.

Well, first:

Soon Bum buys her a cone. They sit outside the usual spot, studying the streets and she thinks simply. She misses her job and she is restless.

"How are you feeling?" Soon Bum asks.

She sighs and rolls her eyes. " _Oppa_ ," she grouses and teases. He leers first, to hide his blush. Then she is serious. "Bored," she says. "I spend too much time in my apartment for no reason at all."

She bites at her ice cream and he laughs. She watches as he shields his eyes. He pulls out a pair of sunglasses but struggles with his hand. His fingers flex and tremble.

"We're all worried about you," he says.

It seems likely that he is saying it primarily out of guilt. It's something that she expects from Soon Bum. Guilt. He is the most fragile out of all of them after the fact. She can count the lines in his face. He is more nervous than ever. She worries about how this might translate into her; teams never stop functioning together.

Then:

"She called me oppa," Soon Bum gleefully reports to Min as he stands over them. The sun hits the lens of his sunglasses. She wonders if he's asked about Ji Ae.

"He blushed," she shoots back. Soon Bum flutters and she sticks out her tongue because it's what she's supposed to do.

Min's mouth shifts and it might be a smile, even though they have learned, she _has_ learned to not expect any sort of smile, even incredulously.

"You should go," Min says instead and to who, it doesn't matter because Soon Bum is already on his feet, avoiding their boss' gaze and heading back into the building. There is no goodbye. He will call her later, talking over some kind of guilt in the same way that Dong Man shows up with flowers and cleaning supplies to help her with her apartment.

Min doesn't sit and she doesn't stand. She stares and licks away at the ice cream. The heat -- she forgot about the heat of the summer -- seems nothing more than lurking, prickling lazily against her back. She's forgotten summer before, and the hight of fall, the changes that seem embedded in how mundane every day life should really be.

So she lets the ice cream taste sweet. She stretches out her legs and lets her boots scrape into the ground.

"How was it?" he asks.

Her nose wrinkles. "Almost over I hope," she says still with a mouthful. The ice cream tickles against her throat.

Her fingers press into her skin. Her nails scrape over it. There is a patch that is puckered and pink; it's the scar. She cannot help but think of his mouth. She doesn't know why or how she thinks about it in that way. It cannot end there.

"I can take you home," he says.

"Trying to get rid of me?"

Min doesn't laugh. He barely blinks as it is.

"Yoo --"

She waves a hand. "Your sense of humor needs to change," she says and there's bite behind her words. She thinks of the doctor and of Luna and Ji Ae and then almost blanches.

"You couldn't take my sense of humor," he says.

There's no bite behind his.

 

 

 

**8.**

He takes her home.

She comes back to work and he takes her home.

It's his bizarre way of apologizing --

keep in mind that he hasn't kissed her yet and she hasn't kissed _him_ yet, as she is more than likely going to be the one that is going to kiss him first, twice, and the third time over because she is too brave and headstrong to do anything else and that is _coming_ \--

This is jumping too far ahead.

On her last, but not last visit to the department therapist, she signs papers that agrees to extended treatment but agrees to put her back into harm's way. It's a strange way to calm herself and calm everyone else because no one works well with holes in their routine.

It's Min that is waiting outside for her, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed and his keys hidden somewhere in between. He looks handsome and impossible and she stares, caught as her therapist blinks and titters and hands him the physical proof her return to business.

They say nothing to each other then (case) and she shoves her hands into her jacket pockets, following him to the parking lot. She wonders if the rumors are true (case) and she'll be going straight to some kind of undercover nonsense (true) and hating them all pretty quickly. They won't talk about it now.

They do get to the door of his car and he stops at the passenger side, his fingers tucking underneath the door handle. He doesn't open it. She watches his shoulders as they rise and sighs pretty loudly, considering her next move.

"Here's the deal," she starts.

He snorts.

"No," she says. "I mean it -- because you seem worried that I'm going to ask you a question. Well, questions."

His hand drops at the door. He doesn't turn.

"And maybe I want to ask you a question," she says -- her voice is dry and distant. She rubs the back of her neck. "Or maybe I've suddenly gained perspective and decided that I'm just going to choose wisely, whatever that means."

"You want to know what happened," he tells her.

"Not really." This is a lie and it isn't. She rocks back onto her heels. "Because I'm not going to like it, right?"

He snorts. He finally looks at her too.

His eyes are dark and wide. She stares openly at his mouth. It puckers first. Then it thins into a line. She watches as he sort of sinks into himself and reaches for him, abruptly curling her fingers into his jacket. She pulls hard, yanking and it's almost childish. She doesn't care, she decides.

"I'm supposed to trust you," she says. "It's important that I trust you," she says too. "And I'm going to trust that you tell me the truth no matter how irrational it all seems. I know that you saved my life. I know that I'm grateful."

He's quiet. His fingers graze her knuckles. He will continue to touch her carefully; his thumb hooks underneath her fingers too.

"I can't convince you otherwise."

"You'll try," she says.

Min chuckles. "Mmm."

But she sobers then, her eyes dark -- she is too tired to be angry with him, too sad to be anything but. To come back to work, it's more of a big deal to her than it will be to him.

It happens then, now, that she decides to do it. Maybe it's a promise. Maybe it's not. Maybe it's just nothing to remember. But one hand becomes a fist, and then another, as she pulls him forward, slowly and carefully to her. She lets her mouth hover and ignores her hands as they tremble too. She doesn't think about making them stop.

She doesn't say either: "I am going to kiss you." Instead, her mouth touches his and then touches it again and she lets her teeth bite lightly over his lip and pull at the skin. She wills herself to think that he tastes sweet, but it's closer to something _softer_ , something not quite there but there nonetheless.

She kisses him and kisses him slowly, not carefully -- it could be clumsy -- and lets her hands uncurl to cup his face. She runs her thumb under the jut of his chin and ignores the feeling that flushes through her as his hand settles at her hip, pulling her close enough. She feels him breathe and doesn't think _it's real_ because to her it may always be the first time and she might think that she can do a series of first times all in row, and just leave it at that.

What she remembers:

She kisses Min and he kisses back. He touches her hair and he sighs and she swallows it. He touches her face and that feels more like a reassurance, then there's another as his fingers slide against her neck. Everything is careful and practical and she will get angry with him, sooner or later, because it feels like he thinks she is too fragile for even a little bruising. Now is just not the time.

Jung In just pulls back first and squints briefly, under the few lights that seem the shadow the building. She watches him lick his lips. Then she watches him sigh.

"It's complicated," she says quietly.

He laughs and it's the warmest she's ever heard him.

"I won't forget," he says.

This is the only reassurance.

 

 

 

**9.**

It won't end and it won't begin.

She will feel light headed some days and she will catch herself touch her throat, or remember the slim hand against her pulls and the way her heart might have just started beating again. She will stare at her scars in the mirror of her bathroom (and later, much later, when his hands run against the back. These question will grow and build and she will stare at him, waiting for some kind of confession that will burst from his mouth.

The truth is this:

She kisses him and he kisses her.

She goes back to work and it's egg shells for all of them, waiting for the next round to Min's obsession and answers. But none of them -- Soon Bum, Dong Man -- will say anything. They are not following blindly and maybe it's closer to something like need. It will haunt her and it'll be cruel and she'll let it be cruel, which is more important than you think. Luna's words remain to resonate in too many forms: quick, quiet, loud and always steady around his face.

Jung In doesn't forget.

The decision isn't made.


End file.
